The Children's Pilgrimage, L. T. Meade [positive books to read .TXT] 📗

the Union. However nice a home it might be for you and me, we could not take Toby with us, Maurice. Aunt Lydia said Toby would not be taken in."

"Then what would become of our dog?" asked Maurice, opening his velvety brown eyes very wide.

"Ah! that I don't understand. Aunt Lydia just laughed, and said Toby should have a yard of rope, and 'twould be cheaper than the Union. I can't in the least find out what she meant."

But here Maurice got very red, so red, down below his chin, and into his neck, and even up to the roots of his hair, that Cecile gazed at him in alarm, and feared he had been taken seriously ill.

"Oh, Cecile!" he gasped. "Oh! oh! oh!" and here he buried his head on his sister's breast.

"What is it, Maurice? Maurice, speak to me," implored his sister. "Maurice, are very ill? Do speak to me, darling?"

"No, Cecile, I'm not ill," said the little boy, when he could find voice after his agitation. "But, oh! Cecile, you must never be angry with me for hating Aunt Lydia again. Cecile, Aunt Lydia is the dreadfullest woman in all the world. Do you know what she meant by a yard of rope?"

"No, Maurice; tell me," asked Cecile, her face growing white.

"It means, Cecile, that our dog—our darling, darling Toby—is to be hung, hung till he dies. Our Toby is to be murdered, Cecile, and Aunt Lydia is to be his murderer. That's what it means."

"But, Maurice, how do you know? Maurice, how can you tell?"

"It was last week," continued the little boy, "last week, the day you would not come out, Toby and me were in the wood, and we came on a dog hanging to one of the trees by a bit of rope, and the poor dog was dead, and a big boy stood by. Toby howled when he saw the dog, and the big boy laughed; and I said to him, 'What is the matter with the poor dog?' And the dreadful boy laughed again, Cecile, and he said, 'I've been giving him a yard of rope.'

"And I said, 'But he's dead.'

"And the boy said, 'Yes, that was what I gave it him for.' That boy was a murderer, and I would not stay in the wood all day, and that is what Aunt Lydia will be; and I hate Aunt Lydia, so I do."

Here Maurice went into almost hysterical crying, and Cecile and Toby had both as much as they could do for the next half hour to comfort him.

When he was better, and had been persuaded to get into bed, Cecile said:

"Me and you need not fret about Toby, Maurice, for our Toby shan't suffer. We won't go into no Union wherever it is, and if the money don't come from France, why, we'll run away, me and you and Toby."

"We'll run away," responded Maurice with a smile, and sleepy after his crying fit, and comforted by the warmth of his little bed, he closed his eyes and dropped asleep. His baby mind was quite happy now, for what could be simpler than running away?

Cecile sat on by her little brother's side, and Toby jumped into her lap. Toby had gone through a half hour of much pain. He had witnessed Maurice's tears, Cecile's pale face, and had several times heard his own name mentioned. He was too wise a dog not to know that the children were talking about some possible fate for him, and, by their tones and great distress, he guessed that the fate was not a pleasant one. He had his anxious moments during that half hour. But when Maurice dropped asleep and Cecile sat droopingly by his side, instantly this noble-natured mongrel dog forgot himself. His mission was to comfort the child he loved. He jumped on Cecile's lap, thereby warming her. He licked her face and hands, he looked into her eyes, his own bright and moist with a great wealth of canine love.

"Oh, Toby," said the little girl, holding him very tight, "Toby! I'd rather have a yard of rope myself than that you should suffer."

Toby looked as much as to say:

"Pooh, that's a trivial matter, don't let's think of it," and then he licked her hands again.

Cecile began to wonder if it would not be better for them not to wait for that letter from France. There was no saying, now that Aunt Lydia was really proved to be a wicked woman, what she might do, if they gave her time after the letter arrived. Would it not be best for Cecile, Maurice, and Toby to set off at once on that mission into France? Would it not be wisest, young as Cecile was, to begin the great search for Lovedy without delay? The little girl thought she had better secure her purse of money, and set off at once. But oh! she was so ignorant, so ignorant, and so young. Should she, Maurice, and Toby go east, west, north, or south? She had a journey before her, and she did not know a step of the way.

"Oh, Toby," she said again to the watchful dog, "if only I had a guide. I do want a guide so dreadfully. And there is a guide called Jesus, and He loves everybody, and He guides people and little children, and perhaps dogs like you, Toby, right across to the New Jerusalem and the Celestial City. But I want Him to guide us into the south of France. He's so kind He would take us into his arms when we were tired and rest us. You and me, Toby, are strong, but Maurice is only a baby. If Jesus would guide us, He would take Maurice into His arms now and then. But Mistress Bell says she never heard of Jesus guiding anybody into the south of France, into the Pyrenees. Oh, how I wish He would!"

"Yes," answered Toby, by means of his expressive eyes, and wagging his stumpy tail, "I wish He would."

That night when Cecile and Maurice were asleep, and all the house was still, a messenger of kingly aspect came to the old farm.

Had Cecile opened her eyes then, and had she been endowed with power to tear away the slight film which hides immortal things from our view, she would have seen the Guide she longed for. For Jesus came down, and in her sleep took Mrs. Bell across the river. Without a pang the old pilgrim entered into rest, and no one knew in that slumbering household the moment she went home.

But I think—it may be but a fancy of mine—still I think Jesus did more. I think He went up still higher in that old farmhouse. I think He entered an attic bedroom and bent over two sleeping children, and smiled on them, and blessed them, and said to the anxious heart of one, "Certainly I will be with thee. I will guide My little lamb every step of the way."

For Cecile looked so happy in her childish slumbers. Every trace of care had left her brow. The burden of responsibility was gone from her heart.

I think, before He left the room, Jesus stooped down and gave her a kiss of peace.

CHAPTER X. "TOPSY-TURVY."

It may have seemed a strange thing, but, nevertheless, it was a fact, that one who appeared to make no difference to anybody while she was alive should yet be capable of causing quite a commotion the moment she was dead.

This was the case with old Mrs. Bell. For years she had lived in her pleasant south room, basking in the sun in summer, and half sleeping by the fire in winter. She never read; she spoke very little; she did not even knit, and never, by any chance, did she stir outside those four walls. She was in a living tomb, and was forgotten there. The four walls of her room were her grave. Lydia Purcell, to all intents and purposes, was mistress of all she surveyed.

But from the moment it was discovered that Mrs. Bell was dead—from the moment it was known that the time had come to shut her up in four much smaller walls—the aspect of everything was changed. She was no longer a person of no importance.

No importance! Her name was in everybody's mouth. The servants talked of her. The villagers whispered, and came and asked to look at her; and then they commented on the peaceful old face, and one or two shed tears and inwardly breathed a prayer that their last end might be like hers.

The house was full of subdued bustle and decorous excitement; and all the bustle and all the excitement were caused by Mrs. Bell.

Mrs. Bell, who spent her days from morning to night alone while she was living, who had even died alone! It was only after death she seemed worth consideration.

Between the day of death and the funeral, Mr. Preston, the lawyer, came over to Warren's Grove many times. He was always shut up with Lydia Purcell when he came, though, had anyone listened to their conversation, they would have found that Mrs. Bell was the subject of their discourse.

But the strange thing, the strangest thing about it all, was that Lydia Purcell and Mrs. Bell, from the moment Mrs. Bell was dead, appeared to have changed places. Lydia, from ruling all, and being feared by all, was now the person of no account. The cook defied her; the dairymaid openly disobeyed her in some important matter relating to the cream; and the boy whose business it was to attend to Lydia's own precious poultry, not only forgot to give them their accustomed hot supper, but openly recorded his forgetfulness over high tea in the kitchen that same evening; and the strange thing was that Lydia looked on, and did not say a word. She did not say a word or blame anybody, though her face was very pale, and she looked anxious.

The children noticed the changed aspect of things, and commented upon them in the way children will. To Maurice it was all specially surprising, as he had scarcely been aware of Mrs. Bell's existence during her lifetime.

"It must be a good thing to be dead, Cecile," he said to his little sister, "people are very kind to you after you are dead, Cecile. Do you think Aunt Lydia Purcell would give me a fire in our room after I'm dead?"

"Oh, Maurice! don't," entreated Cecile, "you are only a little baby boy, and you don't understand."

"But I understood about the yard of rope," retorted Maurice slyly.

Yes, Cecile owned that Maurice had been very clever in that respect, and she kissed him, and told him so, and then, taking his hand, they ran out.

The weather was again fine, the short spell of cold had departed, and the children could partly at least resume their old life in the woods. They had plenty to eat, and a certain feeling of liberty which everyone in the place shared. The cook, who liked them and pitied them, supplied them with plenty of cakes and apples, and the dairymaid treated Maurice to more than one delicious drink of cream.

Maurice became a thoroughly happy and contented little boy again, and he often remarked to himself, but for the benefit of Cecile and Toby, what a truly good thing it was that Mrs. Bell had died. Nay, he was even heard to say that he wished someone could be always found ready to die, and so make things pleasant in a house.

Cecile, however, looked at matters differently. To her Mrs. Bell's death was a source of pain, for now there was no one at all left to tell her how to find the guide she needed. Perhaps, however, Mrs. Bell would talk to Jesus about it, for she was to see Jesus after she was dead.

Cecile used to wonder where the old woman had gone, and if she had found the real Mercy at last.

One day, as Jane, the cook, was filling the children's little basket, Cecile said to her:

"Has old Mrs. Bell gone into the Celestial City?"

"No, no, my dear, into heaven," replied the cook; "the blessed old lady has gone into heaven, dear."

Cecile sighed. "She always spoke about going to the Celestial City and the New Jerusalem," she said.

Now the dairymaid, who happened to be a Methodist, stood near. She now came forward.

"Ain't heaven and the New Jerusalem jest one and the same, Jane Parsons? What's the use of puzzling a child like that? Yes, Miss Cecile, honey, the old lady is in heaven, or the New Jerusalem, or the Celestial City, which you like to call it. They all means the same."

Cecile thanked the dairymaid and walked away. She was a little comforted by